Mike Talbot

New blog post: running R and Python together on an HPC compute node with Positron, including the setup and the snags. Check it out if you routinely work in both languages (regardless of whether you use HPCs or not). miketalbot.io/blog/posts/2...

Hydrology Paper of the Day @jdkirkham.bsky.social on why geoengineering for climate change is not a good idea for polar hydrological systems: changes to solar radiation, ice melt and ice thickness will not be effective, and ocean current engineering will adversely affect sensitive environments.

Excited to announce Groundsource - an open-source dataset of historic flood events! This has easily been one of the coolest projects I've worked on recently! Thread 🧵 for details and all relevant links. 1/n

Hydrology Paper of the Day @kratzert.bsky.social on a novel dataset of flooding events: how large language models can obtain events from news articles; a processing pipeline associated with geocoding; filtering and validation; biases and spatial recall; and understanding correlations.

Hydrology Paper of the Day @webbhydrology.bsky.social on how snow hydrological processes are affected by wildfire: AmeriFlux sites and calculations of PET in context of the water balance; a conceptual model including wind and LAI; changes to sublimation; and moderate multi-year process modifications

Hydrology Paper of the Day @mollystroud.bsky.social @geoallen.bsky.social on how Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) remote sensing data products can be utilized for an understanding of the geomorphology of rivers and sediment transport: observing knickpoints and estimating shear stress.

Hydrology Paper of the Day @michaljenicek.bsky.social @jansei.bsky.social on understanding how rain-on-snow events are influenced by climatic drivers in 93 European catchments: modelling utilized to explore variability; spatial distribution over elevation; and a climatic sensitivity analysis.

Hydrology Paper of the Day @rosswoodskiwi.bsky.social on grouping catchments by snow hydrology, hydroclimatology and water balances: a geography of locations and a conceptual model framework; four periods of a hydrological year explored over spatial landscapes; and mapping seasonality and anomalies.

Hydrology Paper of the Day @cw3escripps.bsky.social on how Long Short-Term Memory models can improve streamflow: the need to consider time scales for integration of SWE and Q; the veracity of different observations at daily and monthly integrations; and a better understanding of spatial patterns.

In a 2024 paper criticizing the 'billion-dollar-disasters' database, Roger Pielke Jr. published analysis that is best described as a Russian-doll of errors. Here's my in-depth take down of his appallingly bad work. economicsfromthetopdown.com/2025/10/26/r...

From December of last year

I think this is correct. A PhD is not a signal of innate intelligence, but rather of perseverance and grit in the pursuit of knowledge. Conflating LLMs with PhDs is a category error.

A new co-authored research paper on "Rain-on-snow (ROS) based flooding" got published recently. We showed how ROS events contribute to actual flooding and identified the causal structure leading to ROS floods in different regions of the globe. Paper link: doi.org/10.1016/j.jh...

I wish people would stop describing things that are indisputably provable as a matter of fact as "controversial." People not liking a fact doesn't mean the fact is controversial. Reality is not malleable around our beliefs and it shouldn't be. We need to stop acting like it is.

showyourstripes.info/s/northameri...

Is “abundance” basically “development” with a glow-up? What does it mean to talk about development when the Trump administration is basically on a project of reversing development? and how should we be talking about “development” in 2025, anyway? new article: www.compactmag.com/article/the-...

Thanks for the reminder @janemunday.bsky.social. Every summer, I repost this article DROWNING DOES NOT LOOK LIKE DROWNING. To date, I know of FOUR kids who were saved after someone who'd clicked on the link learnt how to spot actual drowning. Take time to read and pass on. slate.com/technology/2...

The amount of AI slop on LinkedIn is so unreal, you can now read a post written by AI featuring a misleading photo created by AI, commented on by hundreds of users automating their online presence with AI tools. What could be more devoid of real value?

OFFS. ☠️☠️ www.nytimes.com/2025/06/16/u...

The root that tears apart your foundation begins as a seed of distrust, hate, and blame. The seed that grew into a dictatorship in Europe didn’t arrive overnight. It started with everyday Germans mad about inflation and looking for someone to blame.

It makes my day when I get an aggressive bus driver who owns the road. Show those cars who's boss, m'man.

Jonathan Frame is looking for PhD students and a PostDoc at his new group at UoA. If you want to work at the intersection of Earth Sciences / Hydrology and Deep Learning or also modeling in more general, go checkout the postings at dualearth.github.io/opportunitie... Reposts appreciated.

The units you choose to use when presenting your results are even more important than you might think. Here I use the acre-foot as a case study in why it's worth giving it some extra consideration. miketalbot.io/posts/2024-1...

I started running again in 2024 for the first time in 9 years. I can definitely improve upon this in 2025, but it just feels good to be back at it.

All I want for Christmas is a fully automated weather station with a heated weighing gage and an Alter shield. Is that so much to ask for?

Nothing quite so clearly describes corrupt capitalism as the idea that the companies responsible for disastrous #climate disruption are now trying to profit from technologies they claim will solve it. The New Climate Gold Rush: Scrubbing Carbon From the Sky www.nytimes.com/2024/12/22/c...

I took exactly one selfie at #AGU24 and it was with an F-1 rocket engine. My 12-year-old self would be quite happy.

There's a reason my dogs were barking on Friday after leaving #AGU24

If anyone is looking for someone to block, I was cruising the #AGU24 feed and found that grifter who uses ChatGPT to write a paid-subscription climate denial newsletter with fake citations. Unsurprisingly, guys peddling science denial also complain when scientists want to be treated with respect:

Come see me at my poster Friday morning

agu.confex.com/agu/agu24/me...

I’m recruiting graduate students and a postdoc to work on a range of hydrology topics- from water quality in agricultural landscapes to critical zone process (a)synchrony! Interested? Let’s chat at #AGU24!!!

This Minnesota kid spent his evening chilling at Busboys and Poets, which is named for Langston Hughes, sitting across from a giant photo of George Floyd. An oddly Midwestern start to #AGU24 and I'll take it

Working on an updated Ween cover called "AI-generated content got me down"

I’m recruiting for graduate students in the areas of 1) high-frequency water quality patterns and ML and 2) interactions of non-perennial streams/wetlands on forest hydrology and biogeochemistry. I’ll be at #AGU2024 next week! More info at: sites.psu.edu/jmduncan/opp...

Yes, I made one too. This one's a bit different though, as it's of the beloved Cache la Poudre River just outside of Fort Collins, which is a deeply incised mountain stream. I had to triple-log-transform the REM to get this beauty. Tutorial here: dancoecarto.com/creating-rem...

The real adventure was the sharks we jumped along the way

Hydrology Paper of the Day @groundwatermike.bsky.social on fluxes of river water into groundwater: contribution of more than half of 17972 wells in Brazil to aquifers; water flow directions and drivers; connectivities and sensitivity analyses; and groundwater pumping in arid landscapes.

We are hiring a PhD student to start in May for a really cool project. This project focuses on improving snow hydrology for valuable streamflow forecasting. The position includes summer work with stakeholders that will increase student pay. More info. at: findajob.agu.org/job/8024869/...